E PRIEST'S SERMON.

It being the first day of the week, the morning air was filled with
chimes from many steeples.

"Divine service always comforted in life," thought Ayrault, "perchance
it may do so now, when I have reached the state for which it tried to
prepare me."

Accordingly, he moved on with the throng, and soon was ascending the
heights of Morningside Park, after which, he entered the cathedral.
The priest whose voice had so often thrilled him stood at his post in
his surplice, and the choir had finished the processional hymn. During
the responses in the litany, and between the commandments, while the
congregation and the choir sang, he heard their natural voices as of
old ascending to the vaulted roof and arrested there. He now also
heard their spiritual voices resulting from the earnestness of their
prayers. These were rung through the vaster vault of space, arousing a
spiritual echo beyond the constellations and the nebulae. The service,
which was that of the Protestant Episcopal Church, touched him as
deeply as usual, after which the rector ascended the steps to the
pulpit.

"The text, this morning," he began, "is from the eighth chapter of St.
Paul's Epistle to the Romans, at the eighteenth verse: 'For I reckon
that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
to the glory that shall be revealed in us.' Let us suppose that you or
I, brethren, should become a free and disembodied spirit. A minute
vein in the brain bursts, or a clot forms in the heart. It may be a
mere trifle, some unexpected thing, yet the career in the flesh is
ended, the eternal life of the liberated spirit begun. The soul slips
from earth's grasp, as air from our fingers, and finds itself in the
frigid, boundless void of space. Yet, through some longing this soul
might rejoin us, and, though invisible, might hear the church-bells
ring, and long to recall some one of the many bright Sunday mornings
spent here on earth. Has a direful misfortune befallen this brother,
or has a slave been set free? Let us suppose for a moment that the
first has occurred. 'Vanity of vanities,' said the old preacher.
'Calamity of calamities,' says the new. That soul's probationary
period is ended; his record, on which he must go, is forever made. He
has been in the flesh, let us say, one, two, three or four score years;
before him are the countless aeons of eternity. He may have had a
reasonably satisfactory life, from h